Pakistan's energy minister said that Pakistan plans to quadruple its domestic coal-fired power generation capacity to reduce power generation costs, and will not build new gas-fired power plants in the next few years to ease the severe foreign exchange crisis. A shortage of natural gas, which accounts for more than a third of the country's electricity output, will plunge swaths of the country into hours of darkness in 2022.

Pakistan's plan to switch to coal to provide its citizens with reliable electricity has underscored the challenges of developing an effective decarbonization strategy as some developing countries struggle to make ends meet. Despite higher electricity demand in 2022, Pakistan's annual LNG imports fell to the lowest level in five years as European buyers excluded price-sensitive consumers.

We have some of the most efficient regasified LNG power plants in the world, but we don't have enough natural gas to run them, Dastgir said. The South Asian country, battling a painful economic crisis and desperate for funds, is seeking to lower the value of its fuel imports and protect itself from geopolitical shocks. Foreign exchange reserves held by Pakistan's central bank have fallen to $2.9 billion, barely enough to meet import needs for three weeks. The issue, Dastgir said, is not only being able to produce energy cheaply, but also using domestic resources, which is very important.

The Shanghai Electric Thar Power Plant is a 1.32GW capacity plant that runs on domestic coal and is funded by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is part of China's global Belt and Road Initiative.

In addition to coal-fired power plants, Pakistan also plans to expand its solar, hydro and nuclear power plants, Dastgir said, without elaborating. If the proposed power plant is built, it could also widen the gap between Pakistan's electricity demand and installed generating capacity, potentially idling the country's power plants. Pakistan's maximum electricity demand to be met in the year to June 2022 is 28.25 GW, which is more than 35% lower than the generation capacity of 43.77 GW.

It was not immediately clear how Pakistan would finance its proposed coal-fired fleet, but Durst Gill said building new plants would depend on investor interest, and he expected investment to come online when new coal-fired plants proved viable. interest will increase. Chinese and Japanese financial institutions, some of the biggest financiers of coal companies in the developing world, have been withdrawing funding for fossil fuel projects in recent years under pressure from activists and Western governments.Editor/XingWentao